


Song of Joy

by siriuslyhiddenlawyer



Category: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Established Sherlolly, F/M, Nick Cave - Freeform, Pregnant Molly Hooper, Sherlock - Freeform, Sherlock Can't Sleep, Sherlock Holmes - Freeform, Sherlolly - Freeform, Song Fiction, Song fic, cute sherlolly, murder ballads, nick cave and the bad seeds - Freeform, pregnant sherlolly, sherlock mystery, sherlolly fluff, sherlolly myster, sherlolly mystery, sherlolly on the case, sherlolly solve a case, sherlolly song fiction, song of joy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 12:32:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17059844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriuslyhiddenlawyer/pseuds/siriuslyhiddenlawyer
Summary: Inspired by Nick Cave's song by the same name, Sherlock, Molly, and John find themselves face to face with a stranger in the middle of a cold winter's night, who tells them a story.





	Song of Joy

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to STLGeekGirl for being my eyes on this one!
> 
> I HIGHLY recommend listening to Nick Cave's song!
> 
> Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Sherlock was pacing the cottage living room or sitting room or whatever it was called, the fireplace roaring as he lost himself in thought, running the facts of the case he was on through his mind, putting them through various filters in his mind palace. The cottage was quiet, the heavy snow outside muffling all ambient sound. He could hear John and Rosie in the bedroom directly above where he stood, the squeaking of the bed as John or Rosie rolled in their sleep, his Molly asleep in the other room where he’d left her. The case that had brought them here was so confounding, that not even Molly’s soft body could keep him in bed. He’d left his pregnant Molly in bed, pressing a kiss to her sleeping lips and pregnant belly before pulling on his dressing gown and going downstairs.

He'd taken the case because it had seemed to be intriguing but easy enough, seeing it as an excuse to commandeer his parents’ quaint cottage and decided it would be a nice quiet weekend for himself and his small family. Molly had been exhausted, seven months along and still working, she’d appreciated the escape from London. And John had jumped at the opportunity to whisk his daughter away from the city, give her some freedom to play in the snow.

The heavy banging at the door jarred him from his thoughts, eyes flying to the clock on the mantle. It was three o’clock in the morning, the witching hour as his mother had always called it. He thought about who it could be, hearing the creak of the stairs and he glanced to see John sneaking down, his eyes concerned. When there was another round of banging on the door, Sherlock walked towards the wooden door, looking through the peephole to see an unfamiliar man standing there, shivering in the snowfall.

Exchanging a look with John, he reached the door, opening it just enough to look at them, “can I  _possibly_  help you?” he asked.

The man’s voice was soft, his eyes downcast, “have mercy on me sir,” the man said, “allow me to impose on you. I have no place to stay,” he showed Sherlock his hands that were rapidly turning colors, “and my bones are cold right through.”

The man looked harmless enough, and Sherlock knew he would die from exposure if Sherlock turned him away. The cottage was pretty isolated from the rest of the village, which was isolated in its own right. He ran through the possible outcomes of allowing the stranger to come in, his eyes quickly registering the man’s soft hands, his clothes well-made and well-kept, weather worn. He was a professional man, not a vagabond. 

“Come in,” Sherlock stepped aside, glancing towards the stairs to see that his pregnant Molly stood frowning behind John, her palms resting protectively against her belly. 

The stranger walked towards the fireplace, warming himself against the roaring fire as Sherlock stepped towards his best friend and his Molly. She brushed past John, gripping Sherlock’s hand for the last several steps when he offered his hand to her, “it’s alright,” he told her, realizing that John had his weapon tucked into his pajamas, “go back to bed Molly.”

“I’ll stay with him, in case,” John said softly, shrugging, reading the concern in Molly’s eyes as she intertwined her fingers with Sherlock’s. 

“I’m staying with you,” she told Sherlock, shrugging a shoulder, “might as well, since your baby doesn’t seem to want to let me sleep.”

The man had turned his back to the fire, watching the three of them with interest, “allow me to tell you a story,” he said softly, watching with keen interest as Sherlock wrapped his arm around Molly’s shoulders to draw her closer to him, John stepping off the stairs and walking towards the man carefully, as suspicious as Sherlock was. 

“What kind of story?” John asked, sitting across from the man, mindful of the weapon in his waistband. 

“Of a man and his family,” the man tilted his head as he watched John closely. Sherlock instinctively stepped out in front of Molly, trying to hide his smile as she took a step to stand next to him, shooting him a look that reminded him they were partners, not master and subservient. Even if she was seven months pregnant with their first child, “and I swear that it is true,” the man was watching Sherlock and Molly now.

Something about the man was unsettling, the way he watched Molly making the hairs on the back of Sherlock’s neck stand at attention, whatever information he was registering about the man putting him on edge, though he couldn’t quite see what it was about him. He had a strange urge to lock Molly up somewhere safe, to take John’s gun and point it at the man, wanted to tell the stranger to stop looking at Molly.

“Ten years ago,” the man started, eyes never leaving Molly or the arm she had wrapped around Sherlock’s waste, “I met a girl named Joy, she was a sweet and happy thing. Her eyes,” the man’s smile was rueful if not sinister as he spoke directly to Molly, “her eyes were bright blue jewels and we were married in the spring.”

“Aww,” Molly pressed herself closer to Sherlock’s side, looking uncomfortable.

“I had no idea what happiness a little love could bring,” the man was telling Molly, completely ignoring John and Sherlock now, “or what life had in store.”

“What happened?” John asked, frowning at the man, and Sherlock knew his best friend was as unsettled by the man’s attention on Molly as he was. There was something predatory about his gaze that made Sherlock wish Molly had stayed upstairs, hidden from him. 

“All things move towards their end, on that you can be sure,” the man sighed, sitting on the armchair next to the fire, arranging his long limbs, still watching Molly even though he was directing his words to John, “then one morning I awoke to find her weeping, and for many days to follow,” the man shook his head, finally taking his eyes off of Molly to stare down at his own feet, lost in his memories of Joy, “she grew so sad and lonely, became Joy in name only,” his voice grew small, emotionless, “within her breast there launched an unnamed sorrow, and a dark grim force set sail,” he drew in another breath, the three other people in the room watching him with growing curiosity, “farewell happy fields, where joy forever dwells, hail horrors hail!”

Sherlock frowned at the lines from Milton’s  _Paradise_ _Lost,_  glancing at John and his Molly to see whether or not they’d recognized the lines from Book 1 of Milton’s work. But neither had looked disturbed and Sherlock thought that the man had simply memorized those lines because his love’s name had been Joy. He was still unfamiliar with typical human emotions, especially courtship and love. Perhaps he should start memorizing poems and songs with Molly’s name in them.

“Was it an act of contrition, or some awful premonition?” the man turned his attention to Sherlock, his piercing, dark eyes reminding Sherlock of a dark void, emotionless, shark-like, “as if she saw into the heart of her final blood-soaked night,” he stood up, walking towards Sherlock now. Thinking quickly he stepped away from Molly discretely, “those lunatic eyes,” the man’s voice was a hiss as they stood chest to chest, “that...hungry kitchen knife,” the man’s smile was without mirth, without humanity, wearing the same expression Sherlock had seen on the faces of serial killers and mass murderers, “ah I see sir that I have your attention.”

“You certainly do,” Sherlock murmured, falling into step behind the man now, his curiosity getting the better of him, “did she, have a premonition?”

Molly had finally moved back, standing behind John’s chair as the man turned again, walking back towards the fireplace as he wrung his hands, “well, could it be?” he asked, “how often I've asked that question! Well, then in rapid and quick succession we had babies, one! Two! Three!” he whirled around to look directly at Molly, “we called them Hilda, Hattie and Holly. They were their mother’s children,” he told Molly, “they were their mother’s children, their eyes bright blue jewels and they were quiet as a mouse,” he began advancing towards Molly, “there was no laughter in the house, no,” he shook his head, John standing up to stand between him and Molly now, “not from Hilda, Hattie, or Holly,” he stopped when he realized John was standing between him and John, “no wonder, people said, poor mother Joy’s so melancholy.”

“What happened to them?” Sherlock asked, drawing the man’s attention to himself. 

“Well, one night there came a visitor to our little home, I was visiting a sick friend,” he looked at Molly, “I was a doctor then. Joy and the girls were on their own,” he nodded as he stared at Molly, “yeah.”

The man fell silent and Sherlock used his turned back as the opportune moment to beg his Molly with his eyes to go upstairs. The man was growing more worrisome and sinister by the moment, and whatever instinct that grew in a man when he was about to become a father had started to bombard him, wanting to get Molly as far away from the man as he could. But she shook her head stubbornly, even John rolling his eyes at her. 

“Joy had been bound with electrical tape, in her mouth a gag,” the man’s voice was monotone, void of any emotion, “she’d been stabbed repeatedly, stuffed into a sleeping bag. In their very cots my girls were robbed of their lives,” he took a deep breath, “their method of murder much the same as my wife’s,” he nodded at the fire, “the method of murder much the same as my wife’s,” he murmured again, suddenly a broken man, a man deprived of his wife and children in a single brutal act. 

Sherlock frowned, confused. He was usually so good at reading people, reading lies. But this man was defying all of his intellect, all his instincts conflicting. “What did you do?” Sherlock asked. 

“It was uh, midnight when I arrived home,” he told Sherlock, distractedly waving his hand, “said to the police on the telephone someone’s take four innocent lives.”

When the man fell silent again, John prompted him, “what did the police do?”

“They never caught the man,” the man told John, tilting his head as he watched something in the fire, “he’s still on the loose. It seems he’s done many many more...” the man’s voice become deep, guttural, “quotes John Milton on the walls in the victim’s blood. The police are investigating at tremendous cost.” 

“Are there any clues?” John asked, frowning at Sherlock, silently asking him if he knew what was going on. Sherlock shook his head imperceptibly, his attention focused on Molly, who stood still, arms wrapped protectively over her stomach. 

“In my house he wrote ‘his red right hand’, that I'm told is from Paradise Lost,” the man said, walking towards the window and drawing the curtain aside. Sherlock frowned at the man’s sudden ignorance of Milton’s work, “the wind ‘round here is wicked cold and my story is nearly told,” the man told them, “I fear the morning will bring quite a frost.”

“What have you done since then?” Sherlock asked, his mind working overtime as he tried to understand the man, tried to understand why he’d quoted Milton earlier but now denied knowledge of the poem. 

“I’ve left my home,” the man turned to Sherlock, “I drift from land to land, I am upon your step and you are a family man,” he gestured towards Molly with his chin. 

“Did your car break down or something?” John asked, frowning at Sherlock. He realized that Molly and John hadn’t realized the man was lying, hadn’t realized that he’d quoted Milton earlier and lied about it now. Worry gripped him like a vice. He wasn’t sure if the man was armed or not, terrified that if he tackled him and he pulled a weapon, the house was too small and Molly or John could get hurt. 

“Outside the vultures wheel, the wolves howl, the serpents hiss and to extend this small favor,  _friend,”_ the man was staring directly Sherlock know from beneath his lashes, “would be the sum of earthly bliss. Do you reckon me a  _friend_?”

Sherlock stood his ground, “I don’t have many friends,” he told the stranger, “only temporary acquaintances, if even that.”

“The sun to me is dark,” the man told him, “the silent as the moon. Do you sir have a room?” 

Sherlock’s mind was racing, knowing he had to keep the man in sight. He was convinced the man had killed his family, that he was the murder he’d been telling them about throughout the night. He had no proof beside the man’s knowledge of Milton, and his body language was horrifically contradictory. He had to call Lestrade, had to get more information but there was no way he would let the man out of his sight. With Rosie and Molly in the house, there was too much risk but there was no other choice, “I’m sure we can accommodate you.”

“Are you beckoning me in?” the man asked with a nasty smile.

Sherlock read the change in the man’s stance, the tension in his muscles and reacted in time to throw his arm out, catching the man in the middle as he’d attempted to charge Molly. Using his foot, he tripped him, quickly grabbing the man’s wrist while he was confused, twisting it around his back, breaking his wrist, “don’t even  _think_  about moving,” Sherlock hissed in the man’s ear, sitting with his knee planted against the man’s back, “’long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light,’” he quoted to the man. 

The locals took custody of the man in record time. Sherlock let John deal with them, telling them how the man had come in the middle of the night to tell them the story of his family He had no interest in dealing with the local detectives who were too flabbergasted that Sherlock had so easily caught Millhaven’s greatest serial killer to properly interview the man. 

Sherlock left them all downstairs with John, making his way to the bedroom upstairs, where he found Molly on their bed with Rosie tucked against her. The little girl had woken up to the sound of the tussle downstairs and the arrival of law enforcement had frightened her. Molly had finally agreed to go upstairs if only to comfort their goddaughter, and Sherlock had been able to take a deep breath at last as the murderer was arrested, nearly succumbing to the urge to stick his fingers into the man’s eyes for the hungry way he’d watched Molly go upstairs.

His Molly opened her eyes when he entered the room, her arm still wrapped around their sleeping goddaughter as she watched him, “what’s happening?”

“It’s alright,” he sat next to Molly, stroking her hair away from her face before putting his hand over her pregnant belly, “they’ve taken him into custody.”

She’d smiled up at him, “I can’t believe that just happened,” she shook her head. 

Sherlock only chuckled, “the criminal mind,” he rolled his eyes, leaning down to kiss Molly, “he was so bloody arrogant. He’s probably been luring his prey with that story for the most six months or so. He shows up, a harmless looking bloke with a tragic story about how he lost everything. The family welcomes him in, dropping their guard, and he attacks.”

Struggling slightly, Molly finally managed to sit up with his help, glancing down at Rosie to make sure she was still sleeping, “but how did you know?”

“I’ve read Milton,” he rolled his eyes. 

“I have too,” she narrowed her eyes, “I didn’t recognize anything except the ‘red right hand’ bit,” she told him, “this is your favorite part. Come on then, tell me, show off.”

He laughed, leaning towards her to kiss her lightly, “alright,” he sighed rather dramatically, “the way he was talking, his sentence structure was rehearsed, as if he were reading from script. And his story was so...story-like. When someone is telling you a real story, a true story, they will throw in regular parts of speech and often enough they will go off on tangents, they will never be chronological, which is irritating, I assure you. No matter how many times you’ve rehearsed a speech, if it is true, you will still embellish. This man, everything he said to us was rehearsed, planned and perfect from telling us his wife’s name, to the quotes from Milton. Even the questions we asked, he orchestrated. Besides, what kind of grieving father see’s children’s toys all around the room but doesn’t ask about the child?”

“Why would he though?” she frowned at him. 

“After Mary died, John struck up a conversation with any blonde, short-haired woman he saw. After your father died, you struck up conversations with anyone with wire-rimmed glasses or wearing a gray coat,” he told her, “for years after my grandmother died, my mother walked up to any elderly woman with snow-white hair. People tend to approach objects that remind them of their dead relatives as a way to bring comfort to themselves. It’s natural for a father to be attracted to children’s toys after his young child was murdered. Our baby isn’t born and nothing has happened to her, yet I find myself drawn to adults who have signs of children to ask them about their child, simply because I'm going to become a father. Apparently, fathers to be do that. ”

“Maybe that’s why he was fixated on me?” she suggested, “because I'm pregnant and reminded him of his daughters?”

“Perhaps,” he agreed, “but Joy was pregnant when he killed her and their daughters, the constable just verified my suspicions actually. You would have been his ultimate victim. Pregnant, like Joy.”

She didn’t say anything for a few minutes, absently rubbing his wedding ring between her fingers where it rested against her pregnant belly, “God, I can’t imagine what he would’ve done if he hadn’t come here tonight. The people he would’ve gone after...”

“Well, he’s gone now darling,” he told her, “you’re safe.”

Molly leaned forward as much as she could, Sherlock meeting her halfway to take her in his arms, hugging her tightly against him as he stroked her hair, suddenly overwhelmed with the fear that he’d been avoiding earlier. The adrenaline drained from him at last and he realized how horrified he’d been for Molly, how worried that he would miss something and the man would attack his Molly, harm their unborn child. “Also,” he pulled back slightly, “next time we have a homicidal maniac in the house and you’re pregnant and I tell you to go back upstairs, please pay heed.”

“We’ll see,” she shrugged, laughing softly at his expression as she hugged him against her, their goddaughter nestled and fast asleep next to them, their daughter pressed between their bodies. 


End file.
